Round 1 Strategy

[TStar]

One more thing to consider, Cat titans is one of our post powerful decks and basically our Ace in the Hole.  The longer we can wait before we spring it on everyone, the more effective it will be since later rounds are worth more and teams vaults might start getting depleted of important counter cards for that strategy.  The less we can show of our strength earlier the more of a tactical advantage it will give us down the road.

[TheIdioticIdiot]

One more thing to consider, Cat titans is one of our post powerful decks and basically our Ace in the Hole.  The longer we can wait before we spring it on everyone, the more effective it will be since later rounds are worth more and teams vaults might start getting depleted of important counter cards for that strategy.  The less we can show of our strength earlier the more of a tactical advantage it will give us down the road.

I agree...
so... I think I should take quinted fire master
einharjar should take discord/BH

[TStar]

Initial thoughts before doing any research:
GG vs. Dogg: Considering the Event Card, I almost expecting a partially upped immo rush here.  Swapping in some MPs and Cremations will speed them up incredibly and gravity is notorious for being a slow starter.  There is no way we will be able to outrush .  A control deck might be out best option, especially if we can use one that has a low reliance on Permanents (1 Explosions will be brutal if they use them) or that includes PAs for key permanents.
jmdt vs. coinich: I expect Light to bring out one of their strongest decks for this matchup.  This means probably either a Sanc Firestall or Vader Saders.  Both of these take time to set up and Vader Saders don't have CC backup.  I've beaten many unupped sanc firestalls with a simple grabby rush and I'm thinking that might be our best option here.  Novagrabby can roll fast enough to take down Vader Saders before it gets too much of a healing block going, and it will at least give us a decent chance against a sanc firestall.  Additionally, Light is an element that may not utilize too many upgrade conversions since they had such an expensive auction cost so we might catch a break there.
TStar vs Azumi: Ugh.....Time has always been one of our toughest matchups because of how easily RT can neuter many of our best cards like GP and Acceleration and a Neurotoxin deck is still something we'll have problems with.  This is one match where we probably don't need to worry too much about facing heavy PC.  I'm not really sure yet what to best use here but quinted fire eaters might be the best option if it moves fast enough to overcome GotP/Nightmare and Neurotoxin decks.
Malebolgia vs. suxerz: I don't know too much about suxerz but I'm hoping his name reflects his skill lol. I can't really make a prediction here until I see how the other Death matchups are looking to see where they will be focusing their resources most.  Devtals could be a problem.
tng vs. xdude: This is another rough matchup.  Death with it's array of unupped poison options is a tough opponent.  What's worse if they won the propoganda and have plenty of cards to trash for upgrades.  An upgraded speed poison deck would be brutally effective on us.  Death has tons of options but my gut tells me some version of a poison deck will their chosen method against us and make us try to stop it.  I'll look more into it, but that would be my chosen method of attack against Gravity if I was in their shoes.
ein vs. Higs: Another ugh matchup, but we actually fare better against Aether than most.  I've never had to pleasure of facing Higs but looking over her TPvP stuff she seems to like using Healing and Dragons in a combo when she can.  Granted that's a restricted environment so it may not say much but I think it shows that she likes to utilize control type decks.  People who have played her chime in an let me know some of her usual tactics.  Unfortunately the counter for a Fractal deck vs. Dragon deck are vastly different so I'm not sure yet what might work.  This might be a situation where Fractal Chargers would be ideal as that would make the Phase Shields pointless and should be able to keep ahead of any Lightning CC spam to keep our field clear.  Aether has several tough matchups to consider and will likely view this as one of the "safer" duels they have so they might underestimate us and not commit too many additional upgrades to this duel since they already start with a 6-0 upgrade edge.
KDZ vs. Bootsza: Water can roll several deck types.  The most dangerous might be if they utilize upgrades to make an upgraded speed poison deck around Puffer Fish and/or Physalias.  Like Death, that will be a really tough counter for us.  Some of the more standard water decks like Steamers/Squids or Dragons/Freeze are simple counters for us with Gravity Shield Stall since they can't break it.  As a bonus as critters of ours they Freeze with that deck gives us a +9 to damage when he launch it.  In fact, the more I think about it the more some type of catapult deck might make sense here.  Ice Shield is one of their top CC cards and we can use that against them with a catapult.  I'll have to look into some of their previous decks more but unupped Water doesn't rush well but it might work if they up some cards and go with a Nova rush.
TII vs. Amilir: Another tough one because of OE's ability to CC almost anything creature we play.  TII suggested Quint Fire Eaters and that may work, but it'll be a risky move to use it when Wings can basically stop that deck cold.  I don't expect anything too slow like UG and Flying OE's can work but it will not be an ideal choice since most of our creatures take 2 or 3 at least to kill.  Discord might be the card of choice here possibly in a AM stall.  It'll be difficult no matter what to predict this and I'll need to think it over.  Discord/Wings combo seems natural since Gravity has trouble getting flying creatures out and dragons cost a fortune so the Discord stall should stop it dead long enough.  This might be a matchup where using a Pulvy/EQ deck to control the OE's and Fog/Wings would be best.  It's hard to say really when there are so many upgrade options for them too.  I'll need to research this matchup a bit more.

[TheIdioticIdiot]

@Tstar, if you want to take quinted fireeaters, go ahead, I will improvise with whatever we have left
I wanted to take quinted fireeaters even though there is about 100% chance that amilir will use wings because there are momentums in that deck, and I doubt they will pack too much PC (dim shield stalling)
the earth stall could work there....

[killsdazombies]

Im fighting water, they have several options, yet i think they may for a stall, since nearly all there cards have less then 5 hp a gravity shield wont do much good, idk ill need to think a bit more.


girlsgeneration    Dogg - they could stall or rush, however they are most likely going in for a fast rush, i suggest we attempt to counter a rush, or out rush ourselves.
jmdt                    coinch - hmmm, they could stall or they could pull something insane like crusader rush and use our titans against us *an insane move i doubt they would use now*
TStar                    Azumi - time could be tricky, we would have to avoid using thinks like momentum and overdrive, and low cost creatures or fractal might be huge.
malebolgia          suxerz - momentum and less use of perms.
thenewguy          xdude - i suspect a poison rush or a poison stall. this one and water are prolly the hardest
einharjar145        higurashi (master) - maybe a fractal attack? chargers would work well here.
killsdazombies    bootsza - freeze will destroy us, momentum and lots of creatures are the best counter
TheIdioticIdiot    amilir (lt) - CC spam? wings? who knows what air could do. high hp creatures, and momentum should be best

Ill try to post a counter deck in a little bit, leak in the roof right now.

edit: lolninja

[TStar]

I'm not sure yet what will work best against Time.  Their ability to jam up a deck with Eternity/RT lock is lethal.  That might be a situation where a Pulvy deck works best too, but I don't think we really have one that will also give us any chance against a Neurotoxin deck.  That's the catch-22.  Even with Wings we are less vulnerable to Air because we have plenty of Momentum options in our decks and our creatures are strong enough to take several hits from CC before they are killed.  The fractal chargers deck might be a perfect counter to what Air can use on us just because it'll take them quite some time to kill off the field if we drop 5 or 6 at once.  I think we have more viable options against Air than we do against Time is my only point.

Also I've very much against trying to use Discord/BH on Aether.  The Gravity version is slower than the Entropy version and usually takes 3 turns to get the Discord out.  That works for awhile, but the deck doesn't have much punch overall and if even a single Phase Shield gets out the match is over.  Considering how Aether-heavy most of that elements cards are it's likely they'll have lots of pillars and pends they will play which means it'll only be a matter of time before they can power through the stall and set up an unstoppable defense, not to mention a deck with Gravity Pull as a CC card generally isn't too strong against an Aether opponent.  I could easily see Higs using a TU LS'd Obsidian Dragon deck.  I could also see them using a deck that ignores shields entirely since we have so many shield bypass cards in Sapphire Charger, Momentum, Titan, Chimera, and Catapult.  Trying to hide behind a Phase Shield stall is probably not the best option in their case and Higs is a highly intelligent General who I expect would realize that using that tactic would be very risky.  As much as I'm not a huge fan of it, the Deathstalker deck might actually be a strong choice here, along with the Enraged Armagio/Fire Eater if we think she'll avoid trying a Phase Shield stall, which my money would be on she will avoid it like the plague.

[killsdazombies]

time will be more of a personally strat thing, such as seeing if hes spamming rewind or eternity, and if he is, dropping 6 large creatures at once rather then one at a time.

[TStar]

Im fighting water, they have several options, yet i think they may for a stall, since nearly all there cards have less then 5 hp a gravity shield wont do much good, idk ill need to think a bit more.

It is true that water contains a plethora of creatures under 5 HP unupped (Mind Flayer, Blue Crawler, Toadish, Arctic Squid) but two of their strongest unupped offensive cards are at 6HP (Steam Machine, Ice Dragon).  Additionally, some of the first cards upgraded will probably be Toadfish -> Puffer Fish and Blue Crawler -> Abyss Crawler.  In the case of the Puffer Fish this still is a problem for the Gravity Shield, however the upgraded Abyss Crawler is a 6|6 creature that would be blocked by it.  The question then becomes do you think they will utilize Mind Flayers, Toadfish, or Arctic Squids against us.  I think Toadfish is a no simply because their infection ability really isn't terribly useful on creatures like ours that are basically 5+ HP each.  Mind Flayers also seem iffy since the number of dangerous skills we have they'd need to Lobo are minimal.  Using some sort of deck that includes a Catapult would also be powerful since we can use their main type of CC (Freeze) against them by lauching frozen creatures (+9 to damage I think when frozen) and even infected creatures (Add Poison counters to them).

That leaves trying to predict what they will do.  Using Toadfish means they'll needed an Air Mark or Air synergy.  Most Air creatures aren't too useful unless they use this for the OE CC ability.  That type of deck around OE/Infection/Freeze stalling would be a good deck to use against us potentially.  The other would be Puffer Fish/Physalia/Poison.  Those are the two synergies that seem the most dangerous for us.  Theoretically they might roll a Trident deck but I just don't see that happening.  The main reason I suggested the Gravity Shield deck initially is that it would likely be effective against almost every Water deck outside of poison.  Using the BB on the Puffer Fish instead of the Dragons takes them out of threats range, and launching Frozen/Infected dragons at them will only help us overall.  As a bonus if they roll an Air synergy for Infections and try to use flying OE's they would also be blocked by the shield (7HP).  The allowed 3-for-1 upgrades are what really makes me feel good because Blue Crawlers are the obvious upgrade choice and usually one of the first upgrades given to Water cards for PvP and PvE decks (3|3 -> 6|6 for just 1 ).  Bootsza is a vet who it's very likely he already has them upgraded, or enough cash to upgrade them so dropping 2 cards to use 6 upped crawlers on us would work.  Yes, I'm taking a risk in assuming that they won't use a Mind Flayer/Aether synergy but only because I don't really view Mind Flayers as cards that teams view as a strong Gravity counter, and Phase Spiders would be a poor choice as a support creature.  Plus even if they do we still have the catapult to launch dragons with.

Remember, think of all these decks you might face as the unupped version then ask yourself which cards could be changed out for the maximum benefit.  Each Element has a few that would be key for them, and I think one of the keys for water is the Blue Crawler -> Abyss Crawler upgrade.

[jmdt]

I'll post more as I have time later.

For , catapult will be lethal.  I recommend the cat dragons BB deck.  Every time they freeze our critters, it will just inflict more damage to them when we use catapult.  If they try roll toadfish, we send the damage over when we cat those too.  The dragons also bypass a potential wings deck and wince there dragon is 6 hp BB should be able to shut any other crtter down.

[TStar]

time will be more of a personally strat thing, such as seeing if hes spamming rewind or eternity, and if he is, dropping 6 large creatures at once rather then one at a time.

The main problem is we don't really have large creature decks that don't rely on being buffed my Momentum, Acceleration, of Rage Pots and most of the rest are Fire Eater decks that rely on gradual self-buffing.  The closest option we have is the Gravity Shield stall but that's a horrible idea since Time's best creatures are all under 6HP or less.  Not to mention a GoTP/Nightmare deck or Neurotoxin deck will likely demolish that stall.  Accel Dragon Blitz might work since you can hold many of the cards until you are ready to use them and Wings will block the most likely Time attackers (GotP, Dune Scorps, Grabbys).  Scarabs aren't really much of an option against Gravity b/c of Oty threats and high HP creatures.  A Time-based immo/phoenix deck might be a problem but I don't think they'll use that for the same Oty-based reasons, and everyone knows GG loves Oty's and will expect them.  I'm really going to have to test a lot of decks to find a good option.  Matchup-wise this duel might be the most difficult just because going in we knew Time and RT-based decks were a real weakness for us.

[TStar]

UPDATE:  Seems Ryan666 is officially out of War 3 and coinich has replaced him as the General, with ak65ala the Lieutenant.  Team Light has selected valuka as a replacement.  That means one of our matches has changed slightly, so now jmdt will be matching up against valuka instead of coinich.

[jmdt]

So GG and I had a powwow and here's the ideas we came up with:

girlsgeneration    Dogg

by jmdt

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55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55o 55o 55t 55t 55t 55t 55t 5v0 5v0 5v0 5v0 5v0 5v0 74i 74i 74i 74i 74i 74i 8pt

The general idea is, iof they rush, we can use the pulls and maybe even overdrive as CC to kill their attackers.  If they roll a stall, the dolls are highly resistand to anyy CC they will roll (prolly rage pot).  This deck will leave the 2-3 deflag and 3-6 rage pot as dead cards.  With overdrive as the upgrades it increases the damage output to increase speed as much as possible.

jmdt                    valuka

by jmdt

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4vh 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 52q 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55l 55q 55q 55v 55v 576 576 590 590 590 590 590 5og 61q 745 745 745 8pm

We have no idea what they will roll.  When in doubt, take speed.

TStar                    Azumi

by jmdt

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55k 55k 55k 55q 55q 55q 55u 55u 55u 55u 55u 576 576 576 576 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61o 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 621 621 621 8po

has a number of options.  Quint will defeat rt and eternity and the dim shield should be able to stall out pretty much anything they do.  Nightmare could be an issue, but dim shield will stop their ghosts.  with the momentum, if they roll procrastination we will still be ok.

malebolgia          suxerz

by jmdt

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4vh 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 52q 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55l 55l 55l 55l 55q 55q 55v 55v 576 576 590 590 590 590 590 5og 61q 8pm

has the devtals and discord lycan threat along with a novagrabby threat.  a novagrabby will beat the first 2, and our nova grabby should defeat theirs.

thenewguy          xdude

by jmdt

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55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55s 55s 55s 55s 55s 55s 561 561 561 561 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 5oi 8pr

bonewall and poison are big deals.  We can't defeat either directly, but our cat titnas deck defeats bonewall and rolls faster than poison.

einharjar145        higurashi (master)

by jmdt

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4vg 4vg 4vn 4vn 4vn 4vn 4vn 4vn 55m 55m 55m 55m 55m 55m 55t 55t 55t 562 562 562 562 576 576 576 576 576 576 576 576 576 576 576 576 576 8pj

This is a tought matchup so we just have to take a stab.  Higs favors TU decks so antimatter is a hard counter to those.  if she rolls fractal. the sdiss shield may be able to stall a turn or two till the armagio can kill.  and this deck will defeat any lightning CC whe chooses to roll.

killsdazombies    bootsza

by jmdt

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wings stops everything but their dragon and we can pull those.

TheIdioticIdiot    amilir (lt)

by jmdt

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55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55o 55o 55o 55o 55o 55o 55p 55p 55p 561 561 576 576 576 576 592 592 592 595 595 595 595 595 595 8pn

their dragon has > 6 hp and the like blessing/CP decks with BB we should be able to make nice lockdown.